


Zoe

by shealynn88



Series: Aftermath [1]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was the only man since before Serenity Valley who’d been able to make her feel like a woman first, and a warrior second.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zoe

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Serenity.

She was good at grieving. Came from the war. A whispered word over a young, still face, and then back to the living. Fight. Live. Move on. But part of the ease was that they signed up, knew what they were putting on the line, that they might lose it all.

Wash hadn’t signed up so much as been tossed in. Grew up on a backwater planet with bad air and a short lifespan. Choice was one black or the other. He’d made the most of his limited options, but never had been much for war. It was one of the many, many things she’d loved about him. He was the only man since before Serenity Valley who’d been able to make her feel like a woman first, and a warrior second. 

Now the woman was buried with him on a planet fast shrinking behind Serenity, and only the warrior remained. No place for softness out here in the black. 

She’d been full of regret the first time she was alone, after the Reavers. Full of dreams lost and an imagined future now dead. She’d hated that she never got pregnant, that they never went ahead and tried to have that baby.

Now she was glad, a fierce, dead gladness that it hadn't happened. This life held no room for a child. It was bleak and dark, a fight from one dawn to the next. She’d forgotten it for a time, and it had left her open to scarring. Wouldn’t happen again. Nothing left to cut.

She wanted a job, a job where she could prove she was the cold warrior again, but the next meet was days away, so she was doing the next best thing. Cleaning their bunk, clearing away all the mess he’d left, and tidying it into the sterile military style she needed. 

She tossed his things into separate disposal piles without sentiment. Most of the clothes went in the incinerate pile. The Hawaiian print shirts, first and foremost. She saved a pair of boots for River. The girl seemed to like the clunky look. The painstaking collection of cheap tourist items were swept unceremoniously into the incinerate pile. Dime novels and holocubes followed. 

When all was said and done, wasn’t much in the room Zoe could call her own. It fit, really. The emptiness reflected the yawning, warrior black that was inside her now.

She took the first load to the incinerator, listening carefully for the telltale laughter that would signal Kaylee and Simon. It wasn’t the happiness that bothered her. It was the guilty halt of it all at the first hint of her. She was the first to know that living didn’t stop when someone died. If anything, the living picked up the pace a little. It was the textbook response to a near death experience. 

She was just sick to death of everyone stepping on eggshells ‘round her. No need for it. She was a warrior, wasn’t she? Knew death better than any of ‘em, and dealt with it a damn sight better than most. 

Zoe returned to her mission with single-minded zeal, going in for the next load.

She whipped her gun out as she slid down the rungs into the bunk, pointing unerringly at the far corner. There was a gentle impact against her knuckles and the gun rattled against the far wall. And there was River, sitting pretty as a picture in the incinerate pile.

“Girl,” Zoe said, fighting down irritation. “Now’s not the best time for you to be here.”

“Now’s the only time,” the girl said enigmatically, turning something endlessly in her restless hands.

“Not for me. I got work to do,” Zoe said shortly, wanting desperately to be left alone.

“You throw things out because you think you’re empty, but you’re still bursting with him.” The girl stood and slid past Zoe to the rails. She thrust the round form she’d been playing with into Zoe’s hands. “He wouldn’t want you to be rid of it,” she whispered in a wise, sad voice.

The warrior stood for a long moment, stock still, with the small plastic form radiating the girl’s heat into her hands. Finally she looked down at the little snow globe. The cheap piece of garbage was already beginning to yellow with age and wear. It was a simple street scene, no real defining features. Could have been any one of a hundred little towns Serenity’s crew had seen. 

But it wasn’t. It was the first. The first town. The first date. The first time he’d really made her laugh.

Something broke inside her as she looked down at the gently swirling white and realized she’d never see him again. The tears began to fall, accompanied by soft sounds of pain, and she was distantly surprised to realize that she was sobbing. The strength that had held her together left abruptly, and she collapsed onto the too-narrow bed that they’d shared for too short a time. 

Slowly and painfully, the warrior in her gave way to the woman she thought she’d buried forever. Finally, she let go, and the angry, helpless grief overwhelmed her.

This grief was new and different, and somehow more full and real than any other pain of loss had ever been. This was no warrior’s grief that pulled her heart from her chest and threatened to suffocate her. This was the sharp and healing grief of a woman who had lost the man she would love until her last breath.

Finally, she was able to admit it, to him, at least. To herself.

_I miss you._


End file.
